The American Boy (39 page)

The old man took out his watch but did not open it. He pressed the button and the repeater emitted its tiny chime.

“Has one of the servants blabbed about my grandfather?” he said. “Before he went to London, he was clerk to the steward of Monkshill when old Mr Frant had the estate. I came here once as a boy, and watched the fine gentry through the trees by the lake.” Carswall tapped the watch's case, yawned and added in a gloating, childish whisper: “But who is master now, eh? Tell me that: who is master now?”

Sophie was by herself in the drawing room, her face golden in the light of the candles. I looked away, wishing I were a little less elevated.

“Will you take tea?” she said. “And shall I set a cup for Mr Carswall?”

“I do not think he will be joining us.” My voice emerged more loudly than I had anticipated, and I enunciated my next words with particular care. “Have Mrs Lee and Miss Carswall retired?”

“They are in the library. Mrs Lee recollected seeing a volume containing views of Clearland-court. They have been longer at it than I expected.”

I said that it was not to be wondered at that Miss Carswall wished to dwell upon the scenes of her future felicity. I took my cup of tea and sat on the sofa to drink it. The room was huge and chilly, built for show not comfort. The brief excitement of the wine receded, leaving me still in low spirits, yet still a long way from sobriety. Sophie's silence unnerved me. There were no forms, no rules of conduct, to guide us in our present position. Dear God, how I would have liked to kneel by her and lay my aching head on her lap. The cup and saucer rattled as I set them down.

“Sophie.”

She stared at me, her face stern, even shocked, as if what had happened yesterday meant nothing, or was merely a figment of my imagination.

“I have to know,” I said. “What happened means everything to me.”

“You are not yourself, sir.”

“I wish to marry you.”

She shook her head and said in a voice so low I had to strain to hear: “It is not possible, Mr Shield. I have to think of Charlie. What is past is past. I regret it immensely, but I am afraid I must ask you never to raise this subject again.”

Miss Carswall's voice was audible in the hall, addressing Mrs Lee. “The west wing is altogether too mean for a house like Clearland. It will have to be rebuilt. I shall talk to Sir George, by and by.”

So, as the ladies drank tea and chattered about Clearland-court, I knew I was justly repaid for both my presumption and my mendacity. First the presumption: it was one thing for a lady like Sophia Frant to forget herself for an hour or two on a winter afternoon, and quite another for her to marry an apothecary's son who eked out a living at a private school. Nor was this the end of my bitter reflections on this head. Sophie's richly deserved refusal of my offer had re-awoken my jealousy of Captain Ruispidge, and granted it a double force.

Then the mendacity: I had not been honest with her about so many things, not least my suspicion that Mr Henry Frant might still be in the land of the living; that he was a murderer as well as an embezzler; and that for all we knew to the contrary he was within a few miles of us. So great was my desire for her that I had urged the innocent Sophie unwittingly to run the risk of committing bigamy, a crime in the eyes of both God and man.

Oh yes, I was justly served. Even I realised that.

The following day was Sunday, and we drove to Flaxern Parva for divine service. Mr Noak and Mr Carswall did not feel equal to the journey and kept each other company by the library fire. The Ruispidge brothers were in church, but not the ladies. Though we sat in separate pews, afterwards I had ample opportunity to watch Miss Carswall and Sir George, Sophie and the Captain, billing and cooing again.

In the coach on the way back, Miss Carswall said, “Poor Mrs Johnson!”

“She is unwell, I collect?” Sophie said.

“Sir George says she has quinsy. Her throat is so swollen she can hardly speak. She had hoped to be well enough to call upon us within a day or two, Sir George said, but must beg to be excused until she is better. The servant has orders to admit no one.”

The coach rumbled on, the horses slipping and the machine swaying dangerously as we bounced in and out of the ice-caked ruts of the road. Miss Carswall said, “Thank heavens Papa is not with us. Can you imagine?” No one replied, and no one spoke for the remainder of the journey.

All that day, Sophie avoided my company. When circumstances threw us together, she would not meet my eyes. I snapped at the boys and was surly with the servants. It is all very well to say one should bear misfortune with philosophy, but in my experience when misfortune comes in by one door, philosophy leaves by the other.

The weather was still fine on Monday morning. After lessons, the boys begged me to take them down to the lake with their skates. On our way, we met Mr Harmwell and Mrs Kerridge returning to the house.

“Skating?” Mrs Kerridge said. “Enjoy it while you can.”

“Why?” Charlie asked. “Is there to be a thaw?”

“It's not that. The men are cleaning out the ice-house. Once they start filling it, there'll be no more skating for a while.”

“To my mind,” Harmwell said, “it is a most insanitary arrangement.”

Mrs Kerridge turned to him. “Why ever so, sir?”

“The problem here derives from the fact that the lake serves many purposes – it is not only ornamental, but a source of fish, and used for skating in winter and boating and swimming in summer. I understand from the head gardener that it is nigh on eighteen feet deep near the centre. This makes the ice hard to extract, and indeed dangerous for those charged with the task. And the quality of the ice is inevitably poor, bearing in mind the culinary uses it is intended for. It often contains rotting vegetation, for example, and the corpses of small animals. No, I believe the Dutch method –”

“Lord, Mr Harmwell,” Mrs Kerridge broke in. “You talk just like a book.”

“What about the ice?” I asked. “Will they start cutting it today?”

“I believe not,” he said. “So I cannot see that there will be any objection to your skating. While you can.” He raised his stick and pointed towards the south-western quarter of the sky, where clouds were massing. “There may be snow on the way.”

We parted. The boys raced ahead. When I reached the lake, they were not in sight. I took the path round the bank to the defile leading to the ice-house. Edgar and Charlie were perched on the trunk of a fallen tree. Half a dozen men were engaged in emptying and cleaning the building. For a few moments we watched them carrying buckets of ice and muddy straw down the path to a hollow where they discharged their noisome burdens.

The foreman touched his hat and asked if we would like to see the scene of their operations. I followed him down the passage, with the boys behind me. The chamber was illuminated by half a dozen lanterns strung round the dome. Two men were working in the pit itself, shovelling the slush into buckets. As we watched, one neatly decapitated a rat with the blade of the shovel.

“It stinks worse than usual, sir,” the foreman said. “The drain was blocked.”

I looked over the edge. “It looks clear now.”

“We rodded it, and it's draining slowly. But not like it should. If we can't clear it properly from this side, we may have to wait till spring.”

“How so?”

He jerked his thumb outside. “The water runs into a sump and then flows through a drain to the lake. But it blocks easy on account of the grids that keep the rats out. There's a shaft down to the drain so you can clear it. Big drain, look, you can crawl right up to the sump chamber. But we had a terrible storm in the autumn, and them trees came down, and half the bank besides. We'll need to dig out the head of the shaft all over again.”

“The ground's too hard at present?”

“Aye. Like iron.” He spat, narrowly missing one of his men, and squinted up at me. “We should have dug it out earlier.”

I returned outside and filled my lungs with fresh air. The boys were talking with another of the workmen and jigging up and down with cold and excitement. As I approached, they fell silent. These signs should have made me wary; but I was too taken up with my own thoughts to pay them the attention they deserved. A moment later, we walked back to the lake, where the boys skated slowly up and down, conferring privately together.

That afternoon, my spirits were at a low ebb, and I came close to despair. I reasoned with myself, saying that it was the height of folly that I should entertain any hopes with regard to Sophie; reminding myself that what had happened in Gloucester was exceptional, something that would never occur again; and advising myself to put it and her completely out of my mind.

Mr Carswall called me down to the library to take dictation and make copies. He was writing yet another letter to one of his lawyers, this time concerning the negotiations over the possible sale of his Liverpool warehouses to Mr Noak. I understood from the tenor of the correspondence that Mr Noak's London lawyer had raised a number of questions with Mr Carswall's man. The work was mechanical, leaving my mind prey to a succession of gloomy thoughts.

Yet, looking back on those few hours on Monday afternoon, as the sky grew steadily darker in the south-west, I now see the time for what it truly was: the calm before the storm that was about to break over our heads. With hindsight, I can fix the exact moment when I saw the storm's harbinger approaching.

There had come a pause in the harsh, stumbling torrent of Mr Carswall's words, and I was staring out of the library window. A movement caught my eye in the gathering twilight. Riding up the drive was a solitary horseman.

Captain Ruispidge was shown into the library, not into the small sitting room where the ladies were. I stood silently by the window while he and Mr Carswall exchanged greetings. When they had established that their families were well, and that further falls of snow were likely, the Captain begged the favour of a few words in private.

Carswall opened his eyes very wide. “You may leave us, Shield,” he said without looking at me. “Do not go far; I may want you again. Wait in the hall.”

So I kicked my heels by the fire in the hall, watched with barely concealed insolence by the thin-faced footman. Few sounds penetrated the heavy door of the library. Occasionally there was an indistinct murmur of voices, and once the bray of Carswall's laugh.

In about ten minutes, Captain Ruispidge emerged, and the upper rims of his ears were pink. He did not wait to pay his respects to the ladies, but called at once for his horse. His eyes settled on me.

“Why are you standing there?” he demanded. “What are you staring at?”

“Mr Carswall told me to wait.”

His lip curled. All his affability had vanished. Without another word, he pulled on his greatcoat and, despite the cold, went outside to wait for his horse to be brought round.

Carswall called me back into the library. He did not mention his recent interview, and we continued with the letter. As I wrote, it grew darker and darker, and at last Carswall called for candles. Since Captain Ruispidge's visit, he had been restless, finding it hard to settle either to the letter or in his chair. In the intervals between spates of dictation, I sometimes saw his lips moving, as though he were talking silently to another, or to himself.

When the first flakes of snow began to fall, Carswall said we had done enough for the day and told me to ring the bell for the footman. As I was gathering together my writing materials, I heard him ordering Pratt to close the shutters and then to step across to the ladies' sitting room and desire Mrs Frant to wait upon him. I had no wish to see Sophie unnecessarily – it would only distress her, and add to my humiliation – so I hurried away.

Later that day, when I came down to dinner, I found the drawing room empty apart from Miss Carswall, who was sitting at a table and leafing through
Domestic Cookery
. She looked up as I entered and gave me the full force of her smile.

“Mr Shield – I am so glad you are come. I was beginning to feel I had been abandoned on a desert island and would never again hear the sound of another human voice.”

I looked at the clock on the mantel. “I am surprised that no one else is down.”

“Papa has put back the time of dinner by a quarter of an hour. It appears that we are the last to hear.” The smile flashed out again. “Still, we must keep each other company. You will not mind?”

“On the contrary.” I returned the smile, for it was hard to resist Miss Carswall in this mood. “It will be no hardship, at least for me.”

“You are too kind, sir. Pray sit down and amuse me. I am afraid we shall be very dull this evening.”

I sat down. “Why so?”

She leaned close to me, so I smelled her perfume and sensed her warmth. “You have not heard? Captain Ruispidge came to call on Papa. I thought the whole house knew.”

“I was aware that the Captain was here. I was with Mr Carswall in the library when he was announced.”

“Ah – but do you know why he came?”

I shook my head.

Miss Carswall brought her head a little closer still and lowered her voice. “If I do not tell you, someone else will. He wanted to ask Sophie's hand in marriage.”

A chill stole over me. I moved away from Miss Carswall and stared at her.

“Surely you expected it?” she said. “I know I did. You must have seen what was in the wind. He was making up to her while Sir George – oh, it is so provoking. I would have liked Sophie as my sister above anything. It would have been such a suitable match for them both.”

“So Mrs Frant did not accept him?”

“She never had the opportunity.”

“I do not quite understand.”

“In the event he did not offer for her.”